Serving a Purpose
by Alex Kade
Summary: At last! Be careful, my whump obsession is showing... Established Qoole in which Riley has been tortured for days and Q is desperately trying to figure out why. The only thing he knows for certain is that Riley did it for him.
1. Chapter 1

Q wasn't supposed to have gone in. In fact, he shouldn't have been on site at all, but Bond didn't seem inclined to stop him from tagging along once they were fairly certain they had located Riley's whereabouts; and no one seemed inclined to argue with Bond, so there he was. He had reluctantly waited outside just long enough for Bond to give him the word that the building was clear, and then Q was running. He told himself his behavior was entirely acceptable - kind, actually - as one human being who cared for another. The Gates were most definitely not cleared to be anywhere _near_ the area, after all, so the responsibility fell on Q to become Riley's friendly beacon in the darkness. Not that Riley didn't consider Bond to be a friendly face, but the agent wouldn't be enough, not after whatever horrors Riley may have been made to suffer. No, it had to be someone he was closer to, someone he trusted on a more familial (or, in their case, intimate) level, even if his and Q's relationship was only meant to be fleeting, temporary thing. Still, it would be enough. Q knew it would be enough.

"Q," Bond called out as the lithe man practically flew past him in the hallway.

The Quartermaster came sliding to a halt, his body tensed to run again if it was necessary. "Where is he?" he asked breathlessly, ready to continue his somewhat blind spring through the building if 007 answered with anything other than _here_.

"Give me a moment to get this door open, and I'm sure we'll find out," the agent answered in that calm, collected manner of his that was both appreciated and yet utterly infuriating at the same time. Did the man not ever rattle? Riley had been gone for _days_ , held captive by the usual, irrational sorts of madmen that MI6 often found themselves facing, and who knew in what sort of condition they would find him? Q was a bundle of nerves, himself; it seemed he had only just formed his connection with the wily hacker before the man had been taken away from him. It was utterly unfair, more so to poor Riley who never undergone any sort of training to withstand being held captive and...he swallowed the lump in this throat as he thought it...tortured. Sure, he had held up just fine as a building was falling down all around them, but this - being directly subjected to the horrors that man was capable of inflicting on one another for the simple sake of greed or power - this was something that was always hard to face for even the most prepared individual. Riley would be a mess if - _when_ \- they got him out of this. It would definitely be _when_. Or so Q hoped.

"Please be alive," he whispered to whatever deity might have been listening as Bond finally popped the old-fashioned lock.

Knowing it was reckless, and not caring a wit, Q surged past him, slamming into the door and pushing his way through without a care for what traps may lie beyond. Lucky for him, there were none; just a still form slumped against the wall across the room, looking impossibly small and fragile even to Q's standards.

"Riley," he called out quietly as he slowly approached, only barely cognizant of the way Bond hung respectfully back behind him. It was difficult, taking those last few steps to reach his current partner's side, more so to kneel down and place a trembling hand against the man's neck. He looked dreadful, both his eyes swollen shut with blood caked through his hair, down his face, neck, and crusting in areas along his hands and arms, and that was all that Q could openly see. He didn't look like he could possibly be alive, but much to Q's rejoice and guilt-ridden horror, Riley flinched back violently at the slightest touch of Q's gentle fingers. "Shh, shhhh. It's me, Riley. It's Q."

Something akin to a sigh of relief mixed with what could've been a soft sob escaped Riley's swollen lips before he somehow managed to rock his body forward, fully trusting that Q would catch him up and hold him against his shoulder. It was heartrendingly touching, and yet also somewhat nerve-wracking for Q, who frankly wasn't sure where to touch the man without potentially causing further harm. He settled for brushing light strokes through his hair and down his back as he softly asked Bond to get Medical in there as soon as possible.

"Did I do it?" Riley asked, his voice barely a mumbled whisper against Q's neck.

"Do what, darling?" Q answered back in a tone almost as hushed and hopefully soothing.

Riley shifted a little in his hold, finding a slightly more comfortable position in which he could put even more of his weight against the Quartermaster's small frame. Luckily Riley, like Q, was also not a man of large stature by any means, his build only slighter more filled out than the Quartermaster's, but his shorter height making him fit rather easily beneath Q's chin. It only made it that much easier for Q to cradle him against his chest, rocking him ever-so-gently back and forth without even realizing he was doing it.

"My job," Riley answered almost wistfully. "I figured out...why I was here."

Q's hand stilled on the hacker's back for a moment before it continued drawing comforting circles around his shoulder blades. "You were sent here to assist me, and you did so quite admirably. You exceeded my expectations, in fact."

With a familiar stubbornness that was not at all appreciated under the circumstances, Riley shook his head, and coughed into Q's sweater for a moment before continuing. The cough sounded wet - not at all a good sign, but Q wasn't in a position where he could see exactly what it was that his partner had coughed up. He had a sinking feeling that he didn't want to know.

"Pretty sure," Riley forged ahead, "...they picked me to irritate these guys...into making mistakes." He laughed, and airy as it was, it immediately turned into another racking cough that ended with a whimper.

Tears prickled at Q's eyes as he hugged Riley a little tighter against him. "Well, if those were your mission orders, I would say you accomplished them with far better accuracy than any of my most trained agents could possibly achieve their own. Every person in this whole bloody ring of cyber terrorists who isn't currently deceased has been rendered a flustered, blabbering imbecile thanks to you. You do have an uncanny knack for driving a man to lunacy."

Riley laughed again, more carefully this time, or possibly he was just too tired to put more into it. Regardless, at least it didn't send him into another fit, which Q was grateful for. "That's good," he seemed to sigh. "Kept their attention...on me."

"As opposed to what?" Q asked. "Their haphazard attempts at world domination?"

With another little shake of his head, Q barely heard Riley breathe out, "You," before he completely stilled in the Quartermaster's arms.

It was all Q could do to hold back the tears now as he rocked Riley slowly in his arms. "What did you do, you brilliant, beautiful fool?" he whispered against Riley's blood-slicked hair, and that was all the time he had before Medical swooped in and stole his partner away.


	2. Chapter 2

"Well, if it isn't one of the Cheeseburger Twins," Wylder sneered as Q stepped into the room containing his holding cell. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Trust me, this won't be a pleasure," Q promised, meeting the man's gaze with a stone-hard stare.

His cold look only made Wylder laugh, seeing very little threat in the beanpole standing before him. While the Quartermaster was certainly a formidable opponent who had bested him in the cyber world, he by no means created the same threatening image as one of his 00 agents. Whatever the man wanted, he certainly wouldn't be able to scare it out of Wylder; and besides, he had already told MI6 everything they needed to know. There was nothing left of importance that their Quartermaster hadn't either been told from Wylder's confessions or that he hadn't figured out on his own with the aide of his little American sidekick. So, with a confident air, Wylder folded his hands behind his head and simply relaxed, somewhat glad for what was surely to be an entertaining visit from his current guest.

"You are going to tell me why Riley Poole was kidnapped and tortured," Q stated in the same cool, dry tone he used on his agents when directing them through the field, the one that said he was absolutely certain that his commands would be followed with little to no argument.

Wylder snorted. "Why would I know anything about what happened following my incarceration? I was privy only to the information needed to fulfill my personal role in the organization's plans, and at that I failed. I am _nothing_. You should be asking your questions of the people who were actually _holding_ your little pet."

Q blinked with an uncaring nature as he simply stated, "They're dead," with the same disregard as if telling someone the time.

The comment had Wylder dropping his arms down to his lap, now feeling slightly more uncomfortable with his situation. MI6's Quartermaster might not have been physically intimidating if one was judging him by only his physique, but there was definitely something behind those intense green eyes and that unnaturally emotionless tone that said he was not one to be trifled with. Wylder, unfortunately, had trifled.

Any other time and Q might have been pleased to see that he had caused such discomfort in a known criminal by doing little outside of talking, but such small victories left him feeling no joy at the moment, not while Riley was stuck in a hospital bed in an induced coma. Q had waited with the Gates for hours while their friend had undergone highly invasive surgery to repair multiple areas of internal damage, all due to violent acts of sheer blunt trauma. While Riley's lungs had remained miraculously unscathed outside of some bruising beneath the cracked ribs, the blood he had been choking on as Q had held him was the result of several strikes to his abdominal area, critically damaging the soft, relatively unprotected organs underneath.

Riley, in essence, had been slowly drowning on his own blood as his body tried to expel it, and he was too out-of-sorts to prevent himself from breathing it back in.

The thought cast an even darker shadow over Q's features as he set his bag on the table in front of Wylder's cell. The part of him that was trying to tell him that he shouldn't be there, that he should be in the hospital still with his partner, quieted abruptly. Riley's family was at his side, the two of them taking shifts, no doubt, until which time the doctors felt it safe to waken the hacker from his induced state. That could take days, and Q had no intention of just sitting around moping until that happened. Riley was in his sorry state because of Q, he had said as much, and the Quartermaster needed to know why. What had he missed? What was so important about him, specifically, that had resulted in the near-death of his international aide?

A bitter chuckle escaped Q's lips as that last thought struck home. He had borrowed valuable equipment of sorts from another nation, and he would be returning said equipment horribly broken. It seemed he was no better than his own agents in that regard. Perhaps he would go a little easier on them in the future whenever they returned his gear in shambles. Anything more would be hypocritical, given as how he had just successfully mangled a _person_ who was assigned to his care. His 00's would never let him live this down, that much was certain.

Wylder, for his part, sank down more into his chair as he watched the Quartermaster laugh eerily, a dangerous smile teasing his lips as he punched a few keys on his laptop from the safety of the little table outside the glass-enclosed cell. Not two seconds later, there was a slight hissing sound coming from the vent - no visible smoke or anything half as flashy, just enough that Wylder would be aware that Q had done something the terrorist was surely not going to enjoy.

"You should know that I'm down here under my own duress," Q informed his captive with his ongoing nonchalance. "I will not be discovered for as long as I see fit, and neither will you. As far as anyone topside knows, you are sleeping quite peacefully on your cot."

"What are you going to do to me?" Wylder asked in a bit of a panic, his eyes darting from Q to the vent.

The Quartermaster smiled, a full one this time, but no less disturbing than the one he'd been sporting before. "Putting you to sleep, of course. Despite what I do for a living, I don't actually particularly like lying, so I'm merely matching what they see-" he tilted his head slightly towards the cameras, "-to what I see. With the unfortunate exception of the part where you're on the cot. I'm afraid you won't make it that far. Goodnight, Mr. Wylder."

Before Wylder could even form a coherent thought around what Q had just said, he found himself lilting slowly to the side, unable to stop his own body from falling with a muffled _thud_ to the floor. His brain managed to linger for a second on the fact that his clumsy landing hadn't hurt, but that was the last piece of reality he was able to latch onto before he wasn't feeling or seeing anything else at all.


End file.
